New England! Mystic Seaport and Lobster!

Next on the itinerary was Mystic, CT. There is a great living museum there, the Mystic Seaport Museum. This weekend just happened to be the annual antique wooden boat show. What boats! We met friends there, had lunch in an old tavern, and toured the museum by dinghy. The Amistad is there right now! Not a reproduction, but the original ship, carefully restored.







Once in the museum area, we saw the most beautiful old ships, some large, some small.

The Charles Morgan is an old whaling vessel that is permanently moored there. Legend has it that the ship is haunted. Good Morning America and a ghost hunting team checked out the ship about a year ago. Couldn't come up with anything definitive, but they never could explain the strong cigar smoke smell that would waft through the ship occasionally....







We spent the night anchored outside of the museum and left early this morning in a nice, New England light fog.
En route, Luke tossed our ceremonial Connecticut coin -- one per state, as we pass into each state's waters.







Our stop for tonight is Point Judith, RI. We made it to Rhode Island! Lobster! Point Judith is the home to one of the largest fishing fleets in the North Atlantic region. LOTS of fishing vessels!


The town of Galilee is know for it's lobster restaurants. Of course, we HAD to have our first NE lobster. Luke called around and one of the nice restaurant owners offered to let us tie the dinghy up to his boat at the back of the restaurant. So we did! Worked out perfectly.







The 1 pound lobster dinner was great, served in a rustic setting, with dining on an outside porch overlooking the river.







The nice bartender gave us Lobster-cracking-101 lessons, and all that was left was the carnage!











Another diner gave me full lobster cooking instructions (they are SO cheap here!) Another generously offered us a ride to West Marine to pick up a much needed chart book, and then gave Luke one of his own chart books when we couldn't find exactly what we wanted. What a nice expeience this evening was!

Tomorrow, as long as the weather holds, we plan to head for Onset, RI, at the mouth of the Cape Cod Canal. We need to time our sail through the high current of the canal and plan to do it from there.

Oh, and the weather is great --- sunny, clear, non-humid, and 75. This a great place for the summer!

The Thimbles

Sounds exotic, huh? Well, it's a little hidie-hole that Capt. Kidd used to hid his ships. Of course, now, on a summer Saturday, there were over 25 boats hidden it in. It's a little group of island (rock croppings) in the Long Island Sound. Looks like Maine, I've read. Any way, here's the mob scene. That's over a dozen boats rafted up, only one set of the groups in the Thimbles.

We left Port Washington early this morning, in the fog. Thank goodness for radar! We also saw our first lobster pots. Not in nice, neat rows like the crab pots in the Chesapeake, but random, helter-skelter. The markers are larger and not as frequent, but, unline the Chesapeake, they are found in water from 60-125 ft deep! It's rare to find them in water over 25 ft in the Chesapeake. These are shots of a lobster boat, in the fog, pulling up a lobster pot.

Tomorrow, with luck , we'll be in Mystic , CT.

The Big Apple! by water!

I was like a small town girl in the big city --- it was a LOT of fun sailing through the NYC Harbor, seeing NYC from the water. Lots of big boats, but not as congested as I had feared. I hung out on the bow of the boat, legs dangling over the side, camera in hand, looking like the tourist I was!

We left our anchorage at Great Kills, NY, at 10 am in order to catch the current for the transit. The current in the harbor is strong and you need to be sure it's going the same way you are. We entered NYC via the Varrazano Bridge.

The Statue of Liberty was close to our entrance in the harbor via the Varrazano Bridge. How exciting to see it so close!

The NYC skyline was impressive, too. Looked just like all of those post cards they sell! :-)

Then the Brooklyn Bridge....

And of course, the Empire State Building!

Almost next to the Empire State Building is the Chrysler Building.

We safely and easily navigated Hell Gate, a section of the harbor with particularly strong, swirling currents. After exiting the harbor into Long Island Sound, we ended up at Point Washington, NY. There are lots of boats here, not like the small marinas that I'm accustomed to in the mid-Chesapeake region. The town has 5 free mooring balls for transients, and, since we're now transient cruisers, we took one!

And how about this lighthouse! Cute, huh?!!

Wick still hides in his litter box when the going gets rough, but he has learned to appreciate some of the sailboat's attributes....

Off to see more of Long Island Sound tomorrow!

The open water

Well, it isn't scary. In fact, it was pretty flat and uneventful for my first 2 passages over it. But that's ok! We left Cape May, sailed past Atlantic City, NJ, to Barneget Bay for the night. Barneget Lighthouse is the second tallest lighthouse in the US.



Then on to New York for last night. We are outside of the New York City Harbor today, moored in Great Kills Harbor ---- NY City by boat today!



Here's Atlantic City, from the ocean view --- pretty calm, huh! Also, you can see that we aren't that far out from shore.





This is a short one today -- we need to meet the nice laundry folks who are bringing out laundry back to us from the laundry mat, as we don't have a car. Everyone so far---one exception --has been wonderful!



Back in a day or so with pictures from New York by sea!

Cape May, New Joysea....

We LEFT at the ungodly hour of 5am in order to take advantage of the significant current in the Deleware Bay. Made it to Cape May around 2. It was very windy and choppy seas, but certainly uneventful.

Well, uneventful for us. We sailed the whole way, meaning a lot of clanging around of sails,

sail hardware, etc. Wick was so unhappy that he swatted a Luke when Luke tried to comfort him. He (Wickie...) is happy now, sleeping in the cool cockpit on one of our seats, vaguely aware of his night world. A little of the choppy seas ... and Luke harnessed in safely when he ventured out of the cockpit. We neither one want to have to go rescue the other one.

The little bit of the open water that I experienced was fine --- better than the bay, actually. Tomorrow, further north, via open water! :-)

We did sightsee in Cape May, grabbed an oriental dinner and ice cream, plus bought our newest chart book, one for Cape May to Canada. Cape May is a combination of old victorian houses and fishing boats, both commercial such as shrimpers, and also charter fishing boats.

The place where we found to land the dinghy while we explored Cape May was advertised in the guide books as having dinghy docks, but let me tell you, it's false advertising! It is actually a little spot under the bridge beside a gas dock at one of the marinas. But it worked fine.

Delaware Bay (and horseflies....)

The night on the Sassafras was great, cool enough for Luke to go for a swim, and for us to admire a fantastic Chesapeake sunset.

We left at a civilized hour today, around 8, and did the Chesapeake & Delaware canal. Luke did careful calculations for current, and we drifted through it with absolutely no problems. It's much prettier than I anticipated --- I expected a more industrialized area, what with the 886ft ships that use the canal. It was quite narrow and rather bucolic.

We've seen more great blue herons and tricolor herons in the past few days than I've ever seen. Maybe it's the migratory route? Whatever, they are so beautiful.

After exiting the canel, it took us about 3 hours on the open Daleware Bay to reach our anchorage for the night, the Cohansey River, about 15 miles from our exit point of the canal. Thurnderstorms abounded,but we managed to not get run over by any of them. However, as we approached the narrow inlet to the Cohensey, the winds picked up to about 17 knots. Luke did a FINE job of getting us through the cut. Once in the Cohansey, we found 20-100 ft of water, beautiful green, flat marshes, and hordes of green-headed jar flies. Thank GOODNESS for screens!

Up too early tomorrow morning so we can catch the current in our favor to get to Cape May, NJ, about 40 miles. We plan to spend the night, maybe a little shopping, etc, before he head up the coast for my first blue water sailing. I'm excited about it as well as a little apprehensive. But, I know we'll watch the weather carefully, and it'll be fine. Really.

Chester River (Davis Creek) & Sassafras River (Turner Creek) Last days on the Chesapeake for now

We're made progress! It's Sunday night, June 22 (where's my NASCAR!!! I missed it!!!) and we spent the last 2 days steaming up the Chesapeake. It's hard work....



Going into the Chester River, we saw a catamaran race with catamarans that are new to us -- look like sharks circling in the water!



Saturday we motored most of the way, unfortunately, to the Chester River, on the Eastern Shore (for you non-Chesapeake folks, that would be on the opposite side of the bay from Annapolis and Land as we know it). It wasn't much fun, but what a nice anchorage!
A nearby marina provided us with diesel (4.99/gal ---ouch!!!), full water tanks, garbage dumped, and ice cream (Luke was happy). The anchorage was great --- in fact, perfect. Wind was nice, air was cool, and we actually went swimming. No pictures. Now, I'm a Smith Mtn Lake "swimmer" and the current was a little overwhelming for me. I tied off a rope and we hung onto that. Swimming was exhilarating: cool water, no jellyfish (called nettles, up here), a shower on the back transom afterwards, and feeling really refreshed.

Passing from Annapolis to Chester Creek, we went under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge(s). Pretty cool for someone who's only seen it from a motorist's prospective~ Mike, you know who you are, you would have felt ok with this one!



We left at a more reasonable time Saturday morning, 8-ish, and again mostly motored $$$ to the Sassafras River, outside of Turner Creek. This is a nice anchorage, and probably --- if the weather holds -- our last anchorage in the Chesapeake until fall. This area is untypical of the Chesapeake, with cliffs on the shores rather than flat, flat, flat.

One thing I've forgotten to mention is the stingrays! We've seen several of them this trip, two in the Potomac around Annapolis, and a couple the past 2 days. They break the water with their two "wings" and apparently wrestle fish down. Quite amazing, and impossible to catch on the camera.

Wickie in his Safety Litter Box --- he's getting better, honest! Right now, he's helping his daddy in the cockpit. He's going to cost me a fortune in litter, what with cleaning it all of the time to be sure he isn't cowering in anything.

But the nocturnal creature comes out after dark, and he has to explore everything.

What a classic sky for our last anchorge in the Chesapeake! Our next anchorage should be in the Delaware Bay, after crossing the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal! Next report, from Deleware or New Jersey!

Annapolis, MD

What a great sail we had to Annapolis! We left Solomons by 6am Wednesday morning and set sail almost immediately for Annapolis. It was a brisk wind, 15-20 knots and we made good time. Wick hid in the litter box most of the time, but after several hours decided to brave the heeling of the boat and to wander around. He was like a little drunk sailor, leaning against the leeward (downward) walls, wobbling about on unsteady legs. Much better than the day before, though. He may become a boat cat yet

We passed Thomas Point Light on the way into Annapolis. This is the last remaining screwpile lighthouse in the Chesapeake. The rest were torn down in the 1960's and replaced with more modern structures. This one is privately owned and maintained by the Annapolis Historical Society. It was donated to them by the US Coast Guard - who says our taxes don't work sometimes!

After trying to find a spot to anchor in Spa Creek, we ended up on a mooring ball at the Annapolis City Dock. That's an easy dinghy ride into Ego Alley, with dinghy mooring at the end of the little canal.

There are THOUSANDS of boats here, mostly sailboats. There were multiple races Wednesday night, all ending at the draw bridge past our mooring. To make the races more interesting, a huge storm with high winds (we clocked 28 knots at our mooring) came blasting though just at the end of the race. All of the boats came racing in, full speed, through the mooring field and a rainbow, heeled way over, struggling to finish the race. It was exciting!

We opted to move the boat to an anchorage on Thursday in Back Creek. Back Creek is where Luke lived just after he graduated from college. We are anchored just past his old apartment building.

I'm working on my skipper's license for the dingy. Today I started being the one to take it out when we use it. I only ran over one floating marker. Everything else went fine. I think a little more practice is in order.

Our plan is to stay here one more day, a "work day": adding a cleat to the anchor locker, beefing up the dinghy davit, and a few small chores.

Thursday was an especially eventful day --- Luke's daughter Lisa and her husband Mat's son Simon was born! The first grandson! His other daughter Erin and her husband Cian are expecting the first granddaughter in just a few weeks, too!

We're Cruisers!!!!

We officially left on Monday, June 16, 2008! After farewells with our boat neighbors at Ruarks Marina in Deltaville, we set sail around 8am. Unfortunately, the sailing lasted only an hour or so, as the winds didn't cooperate. Our plan was to sail northward, up the Chesapeake, to Solomons, MD. A line of dangerous thunderstorms cut that short, and we went only as far as Smith Creek, MD, about 4 hrs short of Solomons. We missed most of the first storm, but rode out the second storm around midnight. All was well, we just wanted to keep an eye on our position.

Wickie adjusted well to boat life, but he's sure not pleased with the actual sailing. All of the motion, noises, and sudden movements have driven him to retreat in his litter box while we're underway (yes, it's clean!!! ) He comes out cautiously after we are at anchor for couple of hours. Think of walking on a heeling, rocking sailboat with no hands to steady yourself --- no wonder he's not a happy boy!

We left Smith Creek at 7am, shot up the Chesapeake to Solomons, with a wonderful breeze the whole way, actually around 15 knots, so it was a great sail. If a small craft advisery doesn't keep us here tomorrow, we are planning on Annapolis.

Oh, and prior to leaving, the square rigger sailing vessel Godspeed came into the marina for the night, complete with the cannon fire announcement of her arrival. She was beautiful to watch, all sails flying.